Resident Evil: The Fall of Sunnydale
by Nodakskip
Summary: A virus outbreak turns Sunnydale into a living nightmare.
1. Chapter 1

Top Secret Underground Facility Code Name "The Hive"

**Title:** Resident Evil: The Fall of Sunnydale

**Author:** Nodakskip

**Email:**

**Beta by:** Theo

**Rating:** R

**Disclaimer: **The characters aren't mine; they all belong to their respective owners.

**Setting:** AU initially set during BtVS season 3.

**Summary: **The prequel to my fic "A Very Bad Night". And that small fic will be added to this one when that point comes.

**Top Secret Underground Facility Code Name "The Hive"**

**Operated by the Umbrella Corporation**

**Location: Three Miles underneath Sunnydale, California**

**Sunday, September 6****th**** 1998**

**12:45 pm**

The man in the white lab coat walked calmly down the metal corridor. He casually glanced into one lab that held several large dogs in cages, the trainers injecting one of the hounds strapped to a metal table. Moments later, he rounded a corner and stopped at the lab numbered thirteen. A quick swipe of a security card changed the door light to green, allowing him entry.

Lab tech Alison Hardy looked up from her paperwork when the double steel 'airlock' doors parted. "Hi. What can I do for you?"

"Orders from Major Cain," the man told her as he handed her a folder of stapled papers. "They want a sample of the T-virus ready for transport."

Alison sat up at that. "What? This is the first I've heard of this. That's a high-level…"

"Biohazard," the man finished for her. "I know. But do you really want to be stupid enough to ask why he wants it?"

The young tech shook her head. "No thanks, I'd like to have as little contact with him as possible."

"Bet that's what his mother says as well."

"Probably," Alison said with a laugh. "Follow me." The man followed her up the stairs to another sealed door. She entered a seven digit code, and swiped her card key. "It'll take about twenty minutes to get into the hazmat suits, and-"

"Sorry, dear," the man told her. "But I don't have that kind of time."

"What?" Alison asked before she felt him grab her head…

Then she felt nothing after that.

The mystery man pulled her body into the vault and took her card. "At least you get a quick death," he said sympathetically to her dead-eyed stare from the floor. "Can't say the same for your co-workers, though." He crossed over and used her card to open the virus cabinet.

"Here we go…"

**Hive Security Station**

**A few minutes later**

"RQ?" Security Officer Mark Fillis asked into the air.

"YES, MARK?" a synthesized female voice asked from around him.

"I'm having trouble with the cameras around labs ten through fourteen," Fillis told the central computer known as 'Red Queen' or RQ. "They seem to be on the fritz again. Didn't the techies fix 'em yesterday?"

"WORK ORDERS HAVE REPAIRS SCHEDULED FOR THE EIGHTH OF THIS MONTH," Red Queen told him.

"Ah, crap. But you can do something about it right now, can't you?"

"AFFIRMATIVE. INITIATING TEMPORARY OVERRIDE, I WILL REROUTE THE CAMERA SYSTEM…STAND BY."

Several monitors in the large room started flashing as cameras were redirected. Fillis took this time to check the duty roster for September 8th, as such he didn't see what was on the screens behind him.

On a small screen a camera in a hallway panned over and zoomed into lab thirteen. It scanned for the personnel that should be on duty but could find none. While it swept the area, the camera stopped suddenly on a broken vial. A broken vial that had deliberately been left behind by the man who had killed Alison, as he'd known what would happen once the computer saw it.

The Red Queen's camera zoomed in closer to read the label on a large glass shard. When the label said 'T-Virus' the Red Queen computer went into alarm mode immediately.

"RQ?" Fillis demanded as he saw the red lights flashing. "What's going on?"

"MAJOR BIOHAZARD BREACH DETECTED IN LAB THRITEEN," the mainframe told him. "EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ENGAGED. I AM SORRY, MARK."

"Sorry?" Fillis asked as he tried to get a working dial tone, automatically following his own training. "Sorry for what?" He spun at the sound of the glass security door closing. "RQ?" Though various monitors he saw trapped workers pounding on similar security doors as a gas flooded the rooms.

"Oh my God!" Mark said to himself as gas started shooting out of the room's vents. "RQ!" he yelled. "Stand down! Override Code 56 Alpha!"

"OVERRIDE CODE NOT ACCEPTED. EMERGENCY PROTOCOL 2 ENGAGED," the computer said way too calmly. "STERIZLATION IS IN PROGRESS."

The last thing Mark Fillis saw as he fell to the floor was the framed picture of his wife on his desk. He tried to reach for it, but the gas did its job too quickly.

All around the multilevel Hive the Red Queen computer was systematically killing its human workers in various ways. While that was going on, as per its secret programming, it sent a text message to another base in upstate New York.

HIVE COMPLEX COMPROMISED.

STERLIZATION IN PROGRESS: 83 COMPLETE

ALL ENTRANCES GOING INTO LOCKDOWN LEVEL 7.

**Redtech Private Jet**

**Twenty minutes out of Sunnydale, California**

**Friday, September 11****th**** 1998**

The teenage girl looked very upset in her leather seat. Her parents had been more than a little secretive for the past few days, ever since they'd told her they were coming home early. The original plan had been for them to come back to the U.S. only a day before her senior year was to start. But now, here they were flying back to Sunnydale a lot earlier than that.

Not that the girl really minded, to tell you the truth. The Las Palmas resort was just boring as hell, and she would have nightmares about the size of the cockroaches for years.

"Come now, Cordelia," Charles Chase said as he stopped looking out at the passing ground below. "Are you actually going to sulk all the way home?"

"Yes dear, really," his wife Cilia chimed in. "Lord knows you've wanted to leave that resort for weeks. I know there weren't many good shops around…"

"That's not it, Mother!" Cordelia cut her off.

"So we guessed," Charles Chase said to that. "Honey, we know the real reason you wanted to return home."

"You do?" the brunette girl asked, amused. "Well, then why don't you enlighten me?"

"You're worried about your…boyfriend," Mrs. Chase said with a little distaste.

Cordelia knew that tone right away. "He's not like that Mother, God - if you just got to know him…."

"And that's precisely why we're coming home early."

Cordelia turned to her father in surprise. "Say what?"

**Basement of 17619 White Oak Drive**

**Sunnydale, California**

**Two hours later**

He was an interesting sight, one had to admit. Covers kicked down to his feet, wearing just his boxer shorts as he lightly snored on the pull-out bed. Cordelia would have thought her boyfriend looked cute, if not for the various bruises on his upper body.

This was the real reason she wanted to come back home for so long. After Buffy the Vampire Slayer had sent her undead boyfriend Angel through a portal to Hell, she had split town. And that had caused her, Xander and the others to have to pick up the slack.

Then, two weeks later, Cordelia had boarded a plane for Mexico while the rest continued fighting for their lives each night. As much as she hated to admit it, the young woman had felt like she was abandoning her significant other to the monsters while she got on with her 'pretty' life. Just like she had when Harmony and the others had forced her to dump him on Valentine's Day.

Sneaking in through the basement entrance, Cordelia was glad Xander had told her he was sleeping here these days, in order to avoid his parents given the terrible hours he kept with the Slayage. Because it meant she could avoid Tony and Jessica as well. Opening up the bottle of ice-cold water she had with her, Cordelia dumped it straight onto Xander's sleeping head.

The young man jumped up in surprise as the water hit him. "Wha-!" He glanced around in a daze before he heard female laughter. Xander's eyes widened as he saw his girlfriend standing there, "Cordelia? What are you doing here?"

"Hello to you too, dorkhead. And to answer the question, I came here to do this," the brunette told him before she climbed on the bed and straddled his lap. They made out for a few minutes, before the Chase girl finally came up for air. "Careful there, dweeb-o, what with those thin boxers I can actually feel your…you know."

Xander groaned. "Well, if I'd known you were coming…"

"Why, were you planning on hiding from me?" she teased him as the male teen held her tighter in his arms.

"No, it's because you're the one that doesn't want us to have sex yet," Xander told her. "But hey, I'm a guy…hot young girlfriend squirming around in your lap, kind of gets a response."

Cordy giggled at him before they started making out again. Eventually, before the point of no return came she broke it off, picked up his pants and tossed them to him. "Here." The cheerleader watched as he went behind the beat-up lazy boy chair to put them on. "So. Want to tell me about those bruises?"

Xander just shrugged as he zipped up his jeans and grabbed an old T-shirt. "Normal human fighting vampires…what's there to explain?" Moving around to the front of the chair, he sat opposite her. "Now, not that I'm not glad you're back, but mind telling me why and how? You steal a jet ski from that resort or what?"

"No, but God, did I ever think about it!" Miss Chase told him. "Honestly, I should be mad at you. All those cute-looking Mexican cabana boys who didn't speak a word of English, and yet all I could think about was how you were out there risking your neck every night. Just on account of el Buffo decided to run away from home like that."

"I kinda guessed you missed me from the almost nightly phone calls," Harris joked while ignoring the barbed reference to the Slayer. Then he got serious, "We had a trio of vamps last night, they tried to attack the Bronze. Some people died."

Cordelia almost said she wished she'd been there to help, but didn't - as that would have been a lie. "I take it the blonde wonder is still MIA?"

"Yeah," Xander sighed. "Giles is over in Oakland right now, checking out a report of some girl fighting vampires."

"Shouldn't the people he works for just bring in the new Slayer, though?" she asked him. "I mean, Kendra did die back then, so doesn't that mean there's another Slayer out there somewhere?"

Harris nodded. "Giles said she was in Boston. Apparently though, the Council's kinda reluctant to send her here."

"Why?" the girl demanded. "This is the Hellmouth, what the hell could there be in Boston to top that?"

"Don't know, sweetheart," Xander admitted. "My pet theory though, it's 'cause Giles 'let' Buffy be too independent."

"Ugh. Remind me never to go to England," Cordelia sighed at that news. "Now onto other, more important news. I want you to call Willow and Oz, they're gonna hafta patrol alone without us tomorrow night."

"Care to let me in on the why?" Xander wondered.

She groaned. "Because Daddy and Mother want to meet you."

"They've already met me," Harris reminded her. "We kind of grew up together, remember honey?"

"Yeah…" she said slowly. "But this is different. My parents have finally figured out how it's serious between us, so they want to meet you as my boyfriend. It's, uh, it's going to be a dinner thing at the country club, in formal wear."

"Say what?" Xander demanded at once. "One, I don't own a suit, and two, I don't know which fork goes with what spoon!"

"That's why I'm here," Cordelia told him. "I'll be your etiquette coach, and Daddy gave me one of his credit cards for us to go get you some dress-up clothes."

"Shopping…with you?" Xander shuddered. "Gheeeah. I think I'd rather fight more vampires."

"I'm not that bad!" she scolded him. "And this time it's different, it's for you."

Rolling his eyes, Xander leaned back in the chair. "Any other good news?"

"It, it seems Harmony and Aura are going to be joining us tomorrow night as well," Cordelia replied in a rush with a visible cringe.

"WHAT?!" Xander demanded, recalling the two girls that had led the charge for his girlfriend to dump him back in February. "Oh God, you're serious? Why couldn't I have just died last night as well?"

"Maybe it won't be that bad," Cordy offered. "Mother said she set it up for us to try to mend fences with them. I mean, you know how the Kendall's and the White's are almost as rich as the Chase's, my parents just don't want there to be any bad blood or anything..."

"There is only one thing those two girls are gonna be there for, and that's to get me so pissed off I'll make a scene in public, which is gonna be used to pressure you to dump me again!"

The brunette girl hesitated. The odds were that her boyfriend was right, but if there was one thing Cordelia Chase really wanted more than anything – it was for Xander to be accepted by her social circle, despite his unsavory family reputation, so that in a year from now the concept of leaving this cursed town for them to attend a prestigious college like Harvard together would be more than just a pipe dream.

"Tell you what," Cordelia made a decision, and she dragged her boyfriend onto the bed. "You play nice like Mother Theresa tomorrow night, and I'll..." She whispered the last bit into his ear.

Xander's eyes almost bugged out. "Say what?!" he said to her again, this time with a lot more incredulity.

"Well, you know, it's not sex according to the President," she reminded him. "But if you come near me with a cigar, I will skin you alive."

**Griffins Men's Store**

**Sunnydale, California**

**Later that day…**

"What do you think, young madam?" the shop tailor asked as Xander stood in front of the three-directional mirror.

Cordelia walked around her boyfriend and checked out the materials. "Hmm, not bad. But do you have it just a little darker than the navy blue?"

A shop girl picked up three pairs of pants and brought them over for her to inspect. "We have a few in stock that will fit the gentleman's size," the tailor informed her. "But it will not be a perfect fit. If we had a little more time…"

"I know, I know," Cordelia groaned. "Off the rack is so…ugh, not to mention plain. But we have to get it now. Oh!" she stopped as she saw the last pair of pants. "This one, without the stripes."

"An excellent choice, Ms. Chase," the man told her, as he summoned another girl who gave him a tape measure. "Now for some quick measurements, and we will attempt to find the proper jacket for young sir."

As the guy measured his shoulders, Xander rolled his eyes. "This is taking forever, Cor."

The teenage beauty queen shook her head. "Ignore him. He normally buys his stuff at stores with the word 'mart' at the end of them," she told the tailor.

The man cringed. "My sympathies, Ms. Chase."

"Hey!" Xander said to that.

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**Not long after sunset**

"So how long did it take?" Oz asked.

Xander shuddered, as he looked over the darkened graveyard in search of the vamps. "About four hours. And just for the record, so what if I buy my T-shirts in packs of three? That suit cost more than my dad's car payments for the last six months!"

"Maybe it's a long-term thing, y'know, an investment – for when you'll need it again later," Willow suggested as she sat on a tombstone. "Being Cordelia Chase's boyfriend is gonna make you run around in some high-up circles, I bet."

"They do tend to dress up a lot," Oz mused.

"Like Cordy would ever let me wear the same suit twice," Harris replied. "And on that note, I don't think my torture will end early tomorrow. So, are you guys going to be okay on your own tomorrow night?"

"Ah, sorry, Xander, I thought you knew. We can't go on patrol then," Willow told him.

"WHAT? And how come that is, Wicca girl?" Harris asked her in alarm.

Willow sighed. "We're not gonna be here in town. Mom and Dad are coming with, they want to see Oz and the Dingoes perform in Monterey."

Xander looked to his werewolf friend. "I thought you guys couldn't make it to that gig?"

Oz shrugged. "Devon managed to get the van repaired early."

Xander thought about it for a moment. "Jeez. Well, it'll be okay I guess. I mean, Buffy took the whole night off sometimes, what's the worst that can-"

Willow quickly jumped up and clamped her hand over his mouth. "Don't even say it, you'll jinx us completely!"

"**The Hive"**

**Location: Three Miles underneath Sunnydale, California**

**Saturday, September 12****th**** 1998**

**5:51 am**

The large group of men approached the main vehicle entrance to the underground complex. All of them wore white hazmat suits and gas masks, but the most notable thing each one had was a sub-machine gun. Five men took up positions near the entrance while one in the back raised a small wireless computer. After a nod from the lead figure, he typed in the password.

The round red and white Umbrella logo in the center of the steel doors moved. It spun in place for a moment before retracting altogether, then a seam appeared where it had been and the massive doors started to part. All that could be seen through the opening was black space with the red alert lights going in the background.

"Air reads clear, sir," the tech reported.

The leader nodded, then he motioned to the soldiers. "Advance team, move in."

Minutes passed as the armed team entered the darkened Hive complex. "I've got them on the internal sensors, sir," the tech reported off his screen. "Nothing else reading…wait a minute!"

"What is it?"

"I've got a lot of motion," the tech reported. "But I can't get any body heat."

"Damn, the virus is still active," the leader growled. "So much for the sterilization protocol."

"The gas was still in the testing phase," the tech reported. "Plus we don't know which version of the-"

He was cut off by the sound of machine gun fire in the Hive, followed by screams.

"Advance team, report!" the leader shouted into his radio. Nothing but static answered him. He pulled his weapon as the tech's computer started going crazy. "What is it?!"

"A heat source right at the entrance, not human!"

In response to that, the remaining guards pointed their guns at the entrance. Their mounted flashlights scanned the area and found nothing. "It's here!" the tech shouted looking at his screen.

"I don't see anything!!" a guard said as he scanned his light again. "Wait…" He saw a trail of slime dripping from the ceiling. "What the…OH, GOD!!" he yelled as his light hit the strange creature that was crawling over them. "Fire!!"

The grotesque creature jumped down on top of him and ripped him apart. The others fired madly at it as it did something even stranger. A very long slime covered tongue came out of its mouth and with a whipcrack sound, wrapped itself around the tech's neck, yanking him off the floor.

While they tried in vain to kill the monster, one of them saw something else. "Hostiles coming out!!"

"Shut the doors!" the leader yelled as he fired at the zombies. "Seal it right now!"

One of the men tried to grab the unit off the decapitated tech's body, but found the computer shattered. "This thing's useless!"

"Hold the line!" the leader called as he hit his comm link. "Control, this is Unit One, we are losing containment…we can not shut the doors, I repeat – we can not shut the damn doors!"

**Home Gym, Chase Mansion**

**Sunnydale, California**

**7:45 am**

Cordelia pushed herself as the exercise bike went up its virtual hill. As she tried to ignore the pain in her legs she listened to the slightly Chinese weather girl, Terri Morales of Channel Seven.

"It's hardly eight am, and already the temperature is hitting ninety-one degrees, the woman said in front of the projected map. "The heat wave we've been in for the last few days seems to have no end in sight. The rainfall we were hoping to come our way went towards the south."

The map changed into a five-day forecast. "The high is expected to be just over 100 today with clear skies, and the same is expected tomorrow. On Monday the wind might pick up to gusts around twenty-five miles an hour, so hold onto those hats everyone," Terri finished up.

The teen girl slowed down as the 'hill' was defeated. Getting up, she went over and grabbed the jump rope. She counted out how many jumps she got in during the news 'TV buzz minute'.

"Excuse me, Miss Cordelia?" the maid's Spanish-accented voice called to her from the door. "Miss White is here to see you."

Cordelia took a drink from her water bottle before saying, "Thanks, Lupe, show her in."

The maid moved aside to allow the tall black teen into the room. Aura put a few dress bags on a hook before she came over. "Geez, Cordy. You're exercising full tilt already?"

"If you don't bust your ass, then you don't deserve to keep it," Cordelia recited her own motto. "I'm heading to the track tomorrow around two, want to come with?"

Aura shook her head. "Maybe in a day or two, I don't wanna pull a muscle before the senior year cheerleader training regimen starts. I'll be in daily workouts to make the squad before long, though."

Cordy reached up and shut the small TV off. "Honestly, if I couldn't go running in Mexico, I would have gone nuts." Grabbing her towel, she looked to her childhood friend. "Am I going to be pissed off at you after tonight?"

Aura smirked. "Blunt as ever, Cordy." She leaned against the Bowflex machine. "But no, you don't have to worry about me tonight. Harmony, on the other hand…"

"I'm honestly not surprised she's still trying to break Xander and me up," Cordelia admitted. "In her warped mind, this is the perfect fodder for her to dethrone me."

Aura agreed. "Yeah, well, we all know what she's like. That entire thing back on Valentine's Day…" she looked to her friend. "To tell you the truth though, I think it's that dressing down you gave her afterwards that really hurt her."

"So I bruised Harmony's little ego," Cordelia smiled. "God, I can't wait to be rid of her. Would have done it on Valentine's Day, but no…Mother wants her 'connections' with the Kendall's." She went back to the topic at hand. "Now, just to be clear, what was your beef with Xander then anyway?"

Aura looked at her like it was obvious. "Are you serious, Cordy? It's Xander freaking Harris! That guy's best friend was your number one stalker, till he moved."

Cordelia looked away for a moment. "Yeah, he moved."

The other girl didn't notice and just kept going, "You yourself established the social pecking order. You set the bar on date-worthy material, who we date and who we don't, and then you go and grab one of the 'don't' pile? You know you would have done the exact same thing if I'd started dating, say, Jonathon Levinson." The girl went over and shut the door to the small gym. "And if you must know…I was a little jealous."

"You were?"

"Yeah," the cheerleader admitted. "The jock gene pool in this town is WAY too shallow; we have far too many male bimbos around here. And then you go and get one that seems to have a brain." She sighed. "Plus you ended the…thing we had going, for him."

Cordelia didn't dwell much on the fact that when they were younger, she and Aura had briefly 'experimented' with their sexuality. "Well, I couldn't go around cheating on him," was her only reply.

"And that's what's weird also, Cordelia," Aura told her. "You never gave a damn about that before. Hell, I don't need to remind you what you did while you were dating Bobby Markson, do I?"

"No you don't," Cordelia replied, recalling that particular screw-up. "And as for what we had, it was…good, but we both knew we weren't going to go all Ellen DeGeneres later on in life."

"I know," Aura replied, looking a little hurt nonetheless. "But you have to admit, it wasn't bad."

Cordelia laughed. "Except for that night your older brother almost caught us."

Aura giggled at that little 'sitcom' moment, before she sobered up. "If Harris is what you want…"

"He is," Cordelia affirmed.

"Then I'll help run interference with Harmony," her friend told her, admitting defeat. "Now go take a shower, girl, the hair stylist should be here soon."

**Sunnydale Beach, Sunnydale**

**9:21 AM**

"God, look at that view," Donna told her two friends. "I told you it would be better to come here than some snow-covered college back east."

"At least you don't have to share a dorm room with Goth girl," Kelly told her, as they stopped by a cave entrance.

Their other friend Brenda teased her, "Come on, all she needs is a makeover."

"She'll be fine if I can just…" Kelly said before she screamed.

The other two girls came closer, and saw a man's arm grabbing their friend from the mouth of the cave. "Get off of her, you sicko!" Donna yelled as she grabbed the arm and gave it a good yank. "Oh God, he's covered in blood!" she screamed.

Brenda came over to help pull when something grabbed her leg, and pulled her down. "Ahhh!" she screamed as she was dragged into the cave.

Her scream caused an old fisherman to come running. "What's going on…?" He stopped dead in his tracks. "Holy mother of God!"

The old man had lived here in Sunnydale all his life and had seen things better not thought of, but even so he had to try not to vomit from what he'd just witnessed. He turned and bolted down the beach. "Zombies!!"

**Control Room**

**Redtech Corporate Headquarters**

**Sunnydale, California**

**The same time**

Major Timothy Cain watched the monitor as the infected zombies came out of the cave entrance. With no emotion, he picked up the phone. "This is Cain. Activate Operation Retrieval of employees Level 6 and above." After he hung up he went over to the female tech. "Prepare to initiate city-wide containment as soon as the retrieval teams are finished."

"Yes, sir," the woman said as she began typing commands into her console.

"Sir!" a uniformed man called from the other side of the room. "The Board wants to know what's going on."

"I don't have time to brief them now," Cain told the man before he activated a PC camera link. "Lieutenant," he said as the image of a large black man came up. "How long will you need?"

The man on the screen checked his computerized clipboard. "We should have everyone out of Sunnydale within 45 minutes. Luckily, Mr. White and his family are in Sacramento for the Governor's fundraiser along with most of the town's upper-class citizens." He had no idea that Aura had made a last-minute decision to stay behind.

"What about Chase?" Cain asked as he looked over his own list.

"Not due back from Mexico for at least another week," the lieutenant replied, again completely ignorant of how the man had already arrived home with his family. So much for modern technology.

"Very good," Cain told his man. "We'll regroup at the fallback point alpha, beyond Raven's Bridge. All other access routes out of the city will be blocked shortly."

"Understood, sir," the man on the screen replied before the screen went back to the company logo.

Cain then turned to his people. "Begin the 'scorched earth' policy with the servers and files," he ordered. "I don't want anyone to be able to find anything here…just in case."


	2. Chapter 2

**Rumbaugh residence, 1418 Truman Drive, Sunnydale**

**Saturday, September 12****th**** 1998**

**9:25 AM**

The man looked up from mowing the lawn to see the SUV charge up his driveway. As soon as it stopped, two men in black suits came out and moved straight to him. "Dr. Irving Rumbaugh?" one of them asked.

"Yeah?" he asked as he shut his lawnmower off.

"You'll have to come with us immediately, sir," the second man told him. "There's been an incident."

Rumbaugh didn't even take the time to close his garage door and lock up the house. If these men were here, then chances are he wouldn't be coming back. "Let's go."

--

**Home of the Paynter family, 1180 Hadley Street, Sunnydale**

**The same time**

"Director Michelle Paynter?"

Michelle looked up from the deck chair around the pool, instantly knowing who the men were. "Has something happened?"

"Yes ma'am," the man told his superior. "We need you all to come with us immediately. There's been an incident."

Michelle jumped up and grabbed her purse off the patio table. "Rachel, Mark, get out of the pool, we have to go now!"

"No, mom, we just got in!" her eleven year old son called to her.

"I don't care!" the mother told him. "Follow these men to the car, I'm getting your father off the couch and meeting you there."

"But mom-!"

"Now, young man!"

--

**Crawford Street, Sunnydale**

**The same time**

Umbrella Agent Mike Friedberger turned to the small cul-de-sac of upscale homes as his partner read off the information. "Who do we have?"

"Charles Ashford," Agent Peterson read off. "Science Level 6 employee. He has at least four high level flags on his file. Someone really wants this guy safe."

"And so they let him live in Sunnydale?" Friedberger asked, amazed. "I wouldn't live in this town for anything."

"I hear that," Peterson replied as he studied the picture of the doctor on the screen. "White, 42 years old, glasses…and has a daughter." He looked at 'more info'. "Carl is picking her up."

"Good," Friedberger replied as he pulled the SUV into the circle driveway. "We don't have much time."

Both men got out and went straight to the glass doors. After only one ring of the doorbell, the door opened and something that was not in the good doctor's file made itself known. "Yes?" Doctor Ashford asked from his computerized wheelchair.

( Damn it! )Peterson swore, before he moved to make room in the SUV for the chair. Friedberger stayed with the doc. "Excuse us, sir. There's been an incident."

Ashford's eyes went very wide. "What?"

"You have to come with us right now," Friedberger added.

"My God…how did it happen?" Ashford said upset.

"We don't know, sir," the agent told him as he moved behind the doctor and started pushing him towards the back of the SUV. "Major Cain ordered everyone out of the city as soon as possible."

"But my daughter's already left for school!"

Friedberger tried to sound soothing when he said, "It's been taken care of, sir."

--

**Our Lady of Grace**

**Private Elementary School, Sunnydale**

**A while later**

All the kids in her class stared at her, as Angela "Angie" Ashford walked to her teacher and the two men in black suits with things going into their ears. "Yes?" she asked meekly. The last time she had seen men like this, Daddy had had a very nasty argument with them.

Her teacher looked down to her. "Angela, these men are here to pick you up."

"Did something happen to my daddy?" she asked him, downcast.

"Your father's fine, Angela, but you need to come with us right now," one of the men said as he extended her hand.

Angela took the offered hand, despite having a bad feeling about it. As she was walking down the steps to the waiting black SUV, the young girl had a feeling of dread slowly come over her. She saw a group of kids that attended a public school enjoying their last week or so of summer vacation, and she felt a chill go down her spine. She'd had an episode like this before, before the accident that had killed her mother and left her in a wheelchair for some time. Daddy said that her mother had the same feelings about things and that maybe she got it from her.

The man leading her stopped and looked down. "Angela? Is something wrong?"

The girl looked around again at the kids, and a man jogging on the sidewalk. "N…nothing."

--

**Alamar Avenue, Sunnydale**

**Five minutes later**

Truck driver Scott 'Scotty' Pratt was swearing to himself, as he kept one eye on the road and the other on his bleeding wounded upper thigh. He had a towel wrapped around it trying to stop the bleeding, but that was not working.

"Son of a bitch!" he yelled. "What the hell was that? That jerk-off bit me!"

He tried to keep the blood from oozing out, but it just wouldn't stop. "Where's a hospital in this damn town?" He moved to pull out his state map when he saw it. "Oh damn!!"

Fifty year old Kirby Prechtl turned his head at the loud screeching sound of brakes and his eyes went wide. "Oh no..."

He could only watch as the fully loaded semi truck T boned a black SUV coming from a side street. The SUV spun violently as it hit the center median causing it to roll twice before ending up upside down. The semi itself kept going and smashed into a store front.

Kirby ran over to the wrecked SUV, the driver and the passenger looked very bad, but what stopped the old man cold was the form of the unconscious young girl hanging upside down from the seat. The seatbelt holding her in place as her small arms and the tie from her school uniform hung limp.

"Someone call an ambulance!"

--

**Downtown Sunnydale, California**

**The same time**

Major Cain answered his cell phone as his driver sped through traffic. "Yes?"

#This is Chopper two sir. Evacuation complete, but Gamma Eight was in a major accident. Unknown on survivors.#

"What else can go wrong?" Cain asked himself before he took a page from his assistant in the seat next to him. "Gamma Eight...Gamma Eight…that's the Ashford brat." Back into his cell he said, "Is it possible to recover them?"

#Negative, sir.#" the voice said on the other side of the line. #A police unit is already on scene.#

Cain nodded. "Then fall back to the camp site to refuel. I want the VIPs to be out of here as soon as possible."

#Yes sir,# the pilot said, before cutting the line.

The Major looked up through the sunroof to see the heavy lifting chopper lowering the large concrete barricades onto the bridge. Turning to his assistant he ordered, "As soon as we're over, seal the city."

"Yes sir," the young woman replied.

Very quickly after that order was relayed a remote single was sent into the deepest part of the infected Hive. Even though the computer screen was covered with blood, the words were still shown clear enough to read. That is, if anything was still living down there to read it.

LEVEL GAMMA CITY CONTAINMENT: ACTIVATED

All along the perimeter of the city of Sunnydale countless long metal poles shot up through the ground, even the areas covered by the cliffs looking over the Pacific Ocean. Umbrella had rigged it this way as part of its contingency plans. Several people watching in surprise as a strange glowing energy field started to pulse between them. One small raccoon ventured up to it and was electrocuted instantly.

Then an even stranger thing happened. The ground around the now dead animal started to glow under it.

--

**Room 13, Sunnydale Motor Lodge, Sunnydale**

**Ten Minutes Later**

Former Raccoon City police officer Jill Valentine tossed off her weapons kit. She had been driving all night to get to this stinking place, and another thirty minutes or so to find this hole in the wall motel.

"Who the hell designed this town?" she wondered to herself. "It's like a damn maze."

She checked the TV, but growled when all she found was pay per view porno movies. "Wonder what this place is used for?" she said testily, before she tested the sheets to see if they were okay to get some sleep in.

--

**Chase Mansion, No. 4 Parkview, Sunnydale**

**6:50 PM**

This was going to suck on multiple levels, Xander just knew it. ( How did I let myself get talked into it again? Oh yeah, the power of Cordy bosoms and the ideals of President Clinton. )

"Ah, you would be young Mr. Harris?"

"Yeah, that's me," Xander answered the maid named Lupe as he came into the mansion.

"The other children are in the reading room," the woman told him as she indicated the double doors nearby.

"Thanks," Harris said as he walked in and groaned.

"Xander Harris in a suit," Harmony Kendall snarked as soon as she saw him. "Must be weird not wearing anything from K-mart, huh?"

"Ah, Harmony," Harris replied. "Nice to see you off your knees. I almost forgot you can do more than just football players."

The blond growled at the nerve of the nerd talking back to her, but her outrage was cut off by Aura, who said, "I think you look very dashing, Xander."

Harris looked at her in surprise, while Harmony looked like she'd just seen the face of God. "You, ah...look good too Aura," Xander replied while Harmony shot her friend a dirty look.

"My boyfriends always say blue is my color," the black teen said as she did a little spin.

Harmony stepped over. "Excuse us." She grabbed the other girl by the arm, dragged her into another room and closed the door.

"Good evening, Alexander."

He turned towards the female voice and saw Cilia Chase coming into the room in a black dress with a very expensive-looking diamond necklace on. "Evening, Mrs. Chase. And please call me Xander."

The woman looked at him for a moment. "Yes, Cordelia's told us that was your childhood nickname, but don't you think it's time to move beyond that sort of thing?"

He frowned. "No offense, ma'am, but I don't have any good memories of being called by the name on my birth certificate."

The woman nodded, the Harris family was well known for their…habits. "Be that as it may, it is your name though. I mean, does your driver's license have Xander on it?"

"I don't have a license yet, ma'am," Xander admitted. "Kind of no point, when one doesn't have a car anyway."

"You should still get one nevertheless," she said, not liking that. "Cordelia took the initiative and got hers as soon as she could."

"Right. It's on my list, Mrs. Chase."

"Just like finding gainful employment after high school?" the woman asked.

( OH, so it's going to be like that, is it? ) Xander looked at her upset, but kept it down. "Excuse me, ma'am?"

"You have no driver's license, and no decent job prospects...Alexander," the middle-aged rich woman told him disdainfully. "One can not sit at home and watch television all night and day. You don't seem to be able to support yourself much, so then however will you support Cordelia and give her the life she deserves?"

The young man looked at her, stunned. "Blunt and to the point. Yep, you're Cordy's mom." He looked at her and said, "With all due respect, Mrs. Chase, I don't recall Cordy ever mentioning what your job was."

She smiled slightly. Maybe her daughter wasn't slumming it with a complete idiot. "Very well, let's be blunt. You, young man, have been dating my daughter for longer than any other boy that I can recall. She actually was worried about you in Mexico. Now please tell me, why she would need to be so worried? Maybe she felt you were cheating on her? Maybe with that blond girl…what's her name? Muffy, Fluffy?"

He refused to rise to the bait. "You don't like me," Xander replied, his face like stone. "I get that."

"Good," the woman told him. "Now, I am willing on Cordelia's behalf to try to see what she sees in you, but so far I can't even-"

"Xander?"

Both people in the room turned at the sound of the voice from the foyer. They walked out and looked up the curved staircase and saw Cordelia slowly walking down to meet them. Harris's teenage brain stopped for a few moments at the sight of his girlfriend's tight dress and showing cleavage.

"Cordelia. Nice dress," Harris said slowly as the blood rushed south and his girlfriend came over to them.

"I thought you'd like it," Cordy laughed before she frowned. "Darn it, I thought I showed you how to tie a tie right?" she asked as the cheerleader started to fix his tie like a mother correcting a child.

The elder Mrs. Chase watched the scene, a little annoyed. Her daughter always did act like her boyfriends were giant Ken dolls. The mother was surprised her daughter hadn't started dressing the young man much sooner. ( She always did like playing with designer clothes on her Barbies... )

Mr. Chase then came down the stairs. "Everyone, are we all ready to go to the club?"

"Of course, dear," Cilia said as she took his arm.

Aura and Harmony came out a moment later. Aura had a look that Xander often had after a long lecture by Giles. "Sorry, we just had to discuss something."

"Well then, the limo is waiting," Mr. Chase told the group. "Let's go."

--

**Channel Seven Studios, 314 Crescent Avenue, Sunnydale**

**A short while later**

"Come on, Mark…" Terri Morales pleaded with the station news director. "You need everyone out there."

"No," Mark Tigle said as he kicked his filing cabinet. "What I NEED is for someone to get to the damn tower and fix the damn SIGNAL! We've been off the air since this morning!"

"Everyone is," Terri replied as she tried to ignore her boss's normal upset rants. "Something big is going on out there. TV, cell phones, Internet, land lines…they all went down at once and the police have rioters all over the city!"

Neither of them knew that this had been Umbrella's doing, because the town had to be sealed off and it wouldn't do any good to let people be able to call for help within the doomed city. The older bald man just shook his head, "Kid, this is Sunnydale."

She looked at him, confused. "So?"

"So," Mark told her. "Stuff happens here all the damn time, but it's always the same old, same old. This or that stupid PCP-addicted gang is causing trouble while…" the man struggled for an explanation for the day's events. "I don't know. There must be a power outage at a relay station."

"A relay station?" Terri scoffed. "Everything is down…" she pointed towards the static on the TV screen. "The cable company might be out, but we should still have a signal on the air!"

Her boss sighed. "Look kid, I don't know what they taught you at that high up school you went to back east, but you're the weather girl." He held out his open palms in front of him. "Who do you think knows more about this stuff? Me, who has been here for years, or a girl whose main skill is to tell people how much rain we get a month?"

Terri took offense to that. "I am not a girl!"

"Sorry," Mark replied, amused as he made air quotes with his fingers. "Meteorologist."

Terri slammed the bastard's office door as she stormed out. ( I need to do something about this, God damn it! )

"Told you."

She looked over towards the older secretary. "Bite me, Janice." As she stormed away she didn't notice the older woman's look to that particular insult.

As she passed the small news room, Terri heard the police scanner roar into life.

#Backup! We need backup now!# a panicked voice came through the speakers. The scanner was so low-tech and limited in range, Umbrella had basically dismissed it as having a threat potential. #This is Detective Stein. We need a location on the Mayor, I repeat we need a location on the mayor right now!#

#Dispatch! We need an ambulance down on Clover street! Multiple victims… STOP! I am a police officer, don't come any closer… I said STOP!#

Terri jumped as she heard gunshots followed by screams through the scanner. ( What the hell? )

Making a decision, Terri walked quickly over to the equipment cabinets. She grabbed one of the newer small hand-held camcorders, two blank tapes, and a backup battery before she left to go do some real news reporting that might help her get away from this dump.

--

**Room 13, Sunnydale Motor Lodge, Sunnydale**

**7:30 pm**

Jill came out of the shower, with just a towel wrapped around herself. After being on the run from a ruthless multinational corporation for months…she had learned to appreciate simple things like a long sleep and a hot shower. The former cop quickly dressed in her only clean clothes. A blue tube top, and a black mini-skirt. Not the best outfit to go out in a town known as the Mouth of Hell, but it wouldn't do to meet the group she'd been sent to contact with clothes covered in mud.

She quickly checked out the pictures of the group she was looking for, that Chris had sent to her PDA when he'd ordered her out here. An old English guy, a blond, redhead, brunette...and two guys. She had names for the Brit and the girls, but the guys were another story. From the limited info she got, she knew the leader was named Xander…but no one had bothered to label his photo. "Willow, Buffy, Oz, Xander, and a Cordelia, yep, I'm in California."

Doing one more check to make sure she had everything and what needed to be concealed was, Jill went outside. She immediately tensed up when she saw the burning car down the street, it looked like it had gone out of control running over someone's lawn. But no one seemed to be doing anything about it.

Quietly she came down the stairs to street level, moving to get to her black Ford pickup when she stopped dead in her tracks. The well trained woman quickly pulled out her nine millimeter pistol as the three zombies started shuffling towards her.

"Looks like Umbrella's rolled out the old welcome wagon," Jill snarled, before she started firing.

TBC...


End file.
